It’s hard to know exactly what to make of Jacques Audiard’s ambitious “Emilia Pérez,” a Spanish-language musical melodrama with three women at its center — and it’s especially hard to understand why it’s a musical. There’s certainly plenty of drama in its central trio. Emilia (Karla Sofía Gascón), a transgender woman, is a former drug cartel leader who we first meet before she transitions; Rita (Zoe Saldaña) is the Mexico City lawyer she hires to facilitate her transition and help fake her death (and is later fearful that Emilia may have her killed, as Rita knows the secret); Jessi (Selena Gomez) is the cartel leader’s wife, who doesn’t understand why she and their children have suddenly been taken from their home to begin a new life someplace else. The interactions between this trio, each of them suspicious of the other two, make a fascinating triangle, and the performances — particularly Saldaña’s — are vivid and honest and occasionally electric.

And yet, you watch “Emilia Pérez” wanting something more. There’s plenty of more on screen — some of the musical numbers feature vast hordes of people singing, in the manner of flash mobs, and the film is full of primary colors and inventive visuals. (A chorus of female janitors, early on, brandishes a bright rainbow of rubber gloves.) But the songs, written by French singer-songwriter Camille and composer Clément Ducol, are a weirdly mixed bag. A musical number in a gender transition clinic feels strangely goofy and trivializing (cheery medical staffers warble “Man to woman! Woman to man!”). Lyrics are often poetic at the expense of sense; why does Emilia want “the depth of my soul to smell like honey”? And for every song that lands — there’s a sweet, brief tune sung by Emilia’s younger child, hauntingly remembering her papa’s fragrance — there’s another that sounds too much like the one that came before: flat chanting rather than singing.

Gascón, Saldaña and Gomez, joined in the latter half of the film by Adriana Paz, perform their numbers with fierce commitment, so much so that you almost don’t notice some inconsistencies in the script. (Why does Jessi not recognize Emilia as her former husband, even as the latter constantly refers to “my children”?) Audiard (“Rust and Bone,” “A Prophet“) finds some beautiful images — blue-black mountains glowing in nighttime Switzerland, a burning notebook whose pages curl like a flower’s petals — but ultimately “Pérez” seems strangely underwhelming, like a lavish party that falls just a little flat. The film’s inspiration came from an opera libretto written by Audiard, and I found myself wishing it had actually been an opera, rather than constantly and sometimes awkwardly transitioning from speech to song. These fascinating women deserve more room for their emotions.

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'EMILIA PÉREZ'

2.5 stars (out of 4)

(In Spanish and English with subtitles)

MPA rating: R (for language, some violent content and sexual material)

Running time: 2:12

How to watch: Now in theaters and streaming on Netflix Nov. 13

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